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Talk:Neutral evil
Guidelines? I don't want to get into the naunces of alignment role-play, but I wonder if the guidelines added today aren't a bit narrow and/or inflexible? For example, while a neutral evil character may not generally have the same principled apprehension about bribery that a lawful character might, it is too strong to say that she "Always takes bribes from other people and vice versa." There are many perfectly in-character reasons a neutral evil character might not take take a bribe in a given situation and many reasons why she might not offer a bribe (assuming that's what the "and vice versa" phrase means). Maybe less absolute guidelines would be more useful to players. I will take a stab at this, but it may be that guidelines are more appropriate for a particular server than for the wiki. - MrZork 19:52, July 5, 2011 (UTC) * The recent changes to lawful evil also look over-the-top, but I have not yet had time to read them carefully to see if anything is worth keeping. I did little more than quickly scan the new "guidelines" for both alignments, but at the moment they appear to be a rather shallow understanding of alignment -- along the lines of picking a single personality, classifying it by alignment, then assuming all members of that alignment are the same. The same sort of thought process is probably what is most often responsible for people taking chaotic evil to chaotic stupid. : At the moment, I would not even classify the guidelines as appropriate for any particular server, and would not object to them being removed. If I get time, I will look to see if there is something worth keeping, but I doubt it. (I seem to recall dealing with this before; maybe in the alignment article?) A good guideline for alignment guidelines seems to be don't trust them. --The Krit 01:25, July 6, 2011 (UTC) :* Come to think of it, articles for "chaotic stupid" and "lawful stupid" might be amusing, not totally out of place, and might just be illuminating for the people that play those "alignments" without realizing it. Or would that just be confusing to those people? --The Krit 23:55, July 6, 2011 (UTC) ::* It might be a little tough to do without ruffling feathers, as I suspect some folks may recognize their roleplay in the descriptions. But it would be amusing and potentially useful to people who are new to the PW experience. - MrZork 17:45, July 7, 2011 (UTC) * It seems like part of the problem with the "guidlines" entries is that they come across as rules. Even those added today seem more absolute than they should. Perhaps it's just the authoritative nature of NWNWiki, but I can see someone in a HotU-like situation saying, "Hey, you can't support the seer and her rebels, you're neutral evil! Just look at the wiki." Now, obviously there are in-character reasons for a neutral evil character to take either path, but the "Won't support a rebellion, nor support the law." entry is too absolute. Maybe re-working the section as "Examples of neutral evil role-play" might be a way to give people a flavor of alignment choices without implying those choices are the only appropriate ones in a given situation... : Honestly, I think there are too many interpretations of what a character of a given alignment might do for a list of them to be very helpful on the wiki. There are contradictory actions that may be appropriate for a character because they are 1) very dependent on the situation and 2) very dependent on whether the character is giving more weight to long-term or short-term considerations. The way it looks now, if it comes to a choice of keeping the section or not, I would vote for not. - MrZork 17:45, July 7, 2011 (UTC) :* It might be best to drop the guidelines completely, but since someone things they could be useful (and not just the recent anonymous editor -- some of the guidelines have been around for a while), I am willing to see if they can be made to work. I just went through and revised all nine specific alignment articles to try to take out the questionable parts and give them a more consistent layout (even the chaotic ones :) ). The guidelines got pruned down to five subjects, consistent across all alignments — treatment of others (largely a good-evil issue), value of laws/discipline (largely law-chaos), trustworthiness, relation to authority, and loyalty. The rest I took out because they were too redundant, of limited applicability, or just flat-out wrong. (Why the obsession with bribery? How often does that come up in a NWN or even D&D game?) Eh, see how it looks after a few days. It might still need a disclaimer of sorts reminding readers that guidelines are guidelines, not rules. --The Krit 01:18, July 8, 2011 (UTC) * ^ Errr... yes, this is a noble goal - since there were vital parts missing to this wiki - like the antagonists. Anyway, speaking of alignment, the character is forced to complete the storyline, since the main quests don't change alignment at all, but the side things do, like killing innocent people or not accepting a reward (only helping). Also, alignments don't apply only the character - you should also look for other characters in the game. In this case, the Neutral Evil character does evil things, but sometimes keeps order and sometimes makes things chaotic. - 07:29, July 8, 2011 (UTC) :* So you do participate in the talk pages. That's good. (If you want to take it a step further, create an account. It's not necessary, but it does let you have a name instead of a number, and it would make it easier for you to keep track of your changes, given that your IP address appears to keeps changing. ;) ) :: One thing to keep in mind with the above, is that it should be qualified with "in the official campaigns", as modules can vary. But what do you mean by "you should also look for other characters in the game"? There are other characters in most modules, but generally you only get to see the alignment of your associates. (Alignment is traditionally a hidden stat, after all.) :: :: As for the missing antagonists, I would not call that "vital", since they exist only in the official campaigns, and the official campaigns are such a small part of what NWN is. (If I thought articles about them were vital, they'd be done by now.) In fact, I consider (them useful to some extent, but) their importance one step above nothing -- if the choice is getting articles about the OC or no getting nothing, I'd of course prefer the articles. However, if the choice is between the subjects of articles, I'd choose most things NWN-related over official campaign material. But in the end, the choice of subject is up to the one creating the article. --The Krit 19:26, July 8, 2011 (UTC) Tangent: OC information useful? All right - let me explain this - not only this, but all other wikia are for useful information. In this case, most people want info about some important characters - what are their stats, what do they do... Similar for any items. This wiki, however, is a bit poor... but if we all work, maybe it 'll be much frequently edited and visited! This is just the beginning! MysteryStranger 20:20, July 8, 2011 (UTC) * The only part of that I'd question is "most people", as from what I can tell, most of the people still playing Neverwinter Nights have moved on from the official campaigns to player-made content (and when you're not playing the official campaigns, there's no reason to want information about characters from those campaigns). It's not bad to have that information added to the wiki, but I still do not see it as all that important, compared to the other things this wiki covers. Maybe more generally useful than the PW articles, though. I'll grant that much. --The Krit 21:47, July 8, 2011 (UTC) Also, people would some alternative options, and what if they stuck (they don't know what to do next, where to go...)? The solution must be some reliable sources like this wikia. MysteryStranger 20:24, July 8, 2011 (UTC) * If stuck in the original campaign, the best place to go might be BioWare's original campaign forum. For the SoU campaign, there's BioWare's SoU campaign forum, and for HotU, there's BioWare's HotU campaign forum. For the Premium Modules, BioWare's modules forum looks like the place to go. The modules forum may also be a good place if stuck in other modules, but it might be better to contact the module's author. If stuck in a persistent world, though, that world's forum would be best (if it exists). I suppose NWNWiki could be a secondary resource for those sorts of things, but it seems to me that a wiki is better for questions like "what is the deal with X -- why can I not damage it?" than "what should I do next?". : But understand, I am not saying that we should not have articles covering things specific to the official campaigns, just that I do not see them as a priority. If you like documenting what can be discovered by playing the campaigns, do it. Just be aware that there is a lot more to NWN than just the official campaigns. --The Krit 21:47, July 8, 2011 (UTC)